Development
After World War I the French military expressed a need for an anti-aircraft autocannon. The Hotchkiss company submitted its 25 mm design, but it was rejected as being too slow-firing, so the weapon was proposed for export instead. In 1938, as the international situation was worsening, and the favoured Schneider 37 mm autocannon was still not ready for production, the French military decided to reconsider its refusal to Hotchkiss, who had just won a contract with Romania. The export guns were held in France and impressed into domestic service. The original tripod was found to be unstable, which led to the development of a revised variant with a triangular base with a two-wheel carriage. This new variant was chosen for mass production, but at the time of the German attack in May 1940, only a few hundred of these guns were in service. With them and only approximately two hundred Oerlikons, the lack of modern light AA guns greatly hampered the French army in the campaign.
Read more about this topic: 25 Mm Hotchkiss Anti-aircraft Gun
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively. . . .”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“The highest form of development is to govern one’s self.”
—Zerelda G. Wallace (1817–1901)
“A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.”
—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)